The Progress of the World. 



The Change 



of 



Capitals. 



The dream of Disraeli, which he 

 put into the mouth of Fakreddin 

 in his romance of " Tancred," has 

 found fulfilment in the transfer of 

 the capital of the John Kumpani to the ancient 

 capital of the Moguls. Constantine shifted his 

 capital from the Tiber to the Bosphorus, and the 

 Empire lingered at Byzantium long after it had 

 been destroyed in Rome. There are obvious ad- 

 vantages, sentimental and administrative, resulting 

 from the change. But here also " I hac ma doots." 

 Our dominion in India is based, like our Empire 

 everywhere else, upon the sea. Bombay would be a 

 more natural seat of power than Delhi. If ever our 



Concessions. 



The King- Emperor, in his previous 

 declaration, announced his Most 

 (Jracious Majesty's will and 

 pleasure to acknowledge the pre- 

 dominant claims of educational advancement in the 

 resources of the Indian Empire. As an earnest of 

 the determination of the (lovernment to make educa- 

 tion in India as accessible and wide as possible, they 

 devote ;^3oo,ooo at once to the promotion of truly 

 popular education, which is as if they were to set 

 about the feeding of five thousand hungry persons 

 with seven loaves and two small fishes. That miracle 

 cannot be repeated. So it is the firm intention of 

 the Government to add to the grant now announced 



. staff Fht'tograplitr. 



Durbar at Delhi. An Historic Scene in the Amphitheatre. 



rule is shaken in India it will have to be built uj) 

 from the sea. The need for a cent.'-al geographical 

 site for the capital is less to-day than it ever was, 

 what with imjirovcd railway communication, wireless 

 telegrams, and aeroplanes. The cost of tiansfcrring 

 the apparatus of Government from Calcutta to Delhi 

 will have as a sct-ofT, first, the unearned increment of 

 the building sites of the new capital, and secondly the 

 ' ulting by fifty per cent, of the cost of the annual 

 migration to and from Simla. As to the antiquity of 

 Delhi, those curious in, such matters will find a list 

 I if .nil (he sovereigns who have reigned there since 

 ihe year 5012 B.C. in the current initiiber of th(" 



further grants in future years on a generous scale. 

 The scale should have been set in millions, not in 

 thousands.^ Native soldiers are to be in future eligible 

 for the Victoria Cross granted for valour. Rut no 

 concession was made to the reasonable demand of 

 the native princes that their boys should be eligible 

 for commissiolis in the Im|)erial army. Russia 

 conccdc-s this to her .\siatic subjects. U'e refuse it. 

 Why? Finally, "certain prisoners now suflering the 

 ITcnalty of the law for crimes and misdemeanours 

 shall he released from imprisonment." But the grace 

 of this exercise of the Royal bounty was marred by 

 lack of information as to those who were to be 

 amnestied. Tilak and his brethren in adversity, who 



